


cause the walls don't f---ing love you

by roboticdragons



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Dehumanization, Gen, Imprisonment, dream is an asshole - the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28011192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roboticdragons/pseuds/roboticdragons
Summary: Dream pays a visit to Pandora's Vault.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 86





	cause the walls don't f---ing love you

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this at hyper speed in a couple of hours so it might be terrible, enjoy.  
> dream is tall because art-from-the-void-in-space.tumblr.com 's dream design is my hc

From the outside, Pandora’s Vault looks more like a fortress than a prison. With its pitfalls and redstone-gates and archer towers scraping the sky, it’s easy to assume the Vault is meant to keep people out, not trap them inside - well, trap one particular person. The whole build looks positively medieval, its blackstone-obsidian walls almost reminiscent of a reconstructed Nether Bastion, only three times the size and twice as dangerous.

At the thought of that comparison, Dream chuckles. Ironic, if you know what’s trapped inside.

At the sight of his horse approaching, the guard posted at the front gate - Bad today, though he alternated with Antfrost every couple of hours - snaps to attention. Dream smiles; well, his mask does. Same difference.

They don’t exchange words. After all, there’s not much of a question of why Dream’s here, and though his mask is smiling there’s an unsettling aura around Dream, strong enough that Bad knows better than to strike up meaningless small talk. He flicks a lever. After what feels like an eon the front gates begin shuddering open, rust built up from the recent thunderstorms scraping off and falling from the hinges. The gates are 4 times as tall as Bad, and almost 2 times the height of Dream. No one can scale them. And even if they could, why bother? Spikes litter the top, and the gap between the wall and said spikes is small enough to impale anyone who tries to wiggle through.

Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out. Alive, at least.

Bad’s left outside to care for the horse, and Dream steps in. He’s only inside for a second before that ancient leviathan locked in the Vault’s basement flashes before his eyes, and his limbs grow a fraction weaker. Mining fatigue. A pain to deal with, sure, but essential for keeping their friend inside. What good’s a prison if you can just punch your way out?

Pandora’s hallways appear unnaturally tall to the average person at first, but when its owner steps inside the reasoning quickly becomes clear - when he strides fully upright, Dream’s head scrapes the ceiling. Any smaller and it would be downright inconvenient. Plus, his prisoner’s used to fighting in cramped spaces. Better to not give him the advantage - though, Dream knows deep down there’s not much point. There’s no way in Hell he’d even get the chance to run down these hallways before he’s sent back to the cell. These extra precautions are for everyone else’s comfort, not practicality.

Deeper still. The Vault’s named after the Greek myth of Pandora, the tiny box containing all the world’s evils and woes, but inside it appears more like some sort of mythical labyrinth, with a monster hidden all the way in the centre. Its corridors are purposely frustrating to traverse. Some lead to dead ends, other to lava pits. A couple end in water tunnels, just enough to give you a little bit of hope, before you discover the pipes are purposely built to drown you just a second before reaching the end. So even if he did somehow manage to break the cell, avoid the cell guards, and make it into the main structure (which he won’t, because it’s impossible), he still won’t get out. Nothing gets out.

As he descends down he passes the prison’s aquarium, a vast cylinder enclosed by stained black glass, with a blackstone staircase attached to the side that spiralled downwards, further into the earth. Within swims the Elder Guardian, the source of the mining fatigue. It’s a bloated, thorny, miserable thing, surrounded by smaller guardians that supply its life force, and though it’s absolutely gigantic it’s still barely visible through the murky water. The rushed nature of the prison's building process meant its cage wasn't exactly luxurious. Maybe one day they'll renovate it, make it a bit less miserable. Maybe they won't. It doesn't matter either way - it'll still produce the fatigue they need. At least its container's a bit more pleasant than the prisoner's one; it has that little victory, at least.

Finally, the heart of the facility. This part of the prison is ice cold, being a kilometer or so under the surface, and even Dream finds himself shivering, just a little bit. The walls alternate with cell doors, iron bars and redstone torches, enough to guarantee creatures don't spawn. Really there's no use for all these cells, unless some of the other faction leaders start getting particularly rowdy. Unlikely, but it's better to be safe rather than sorry.

At the end of the corridor there's an area of discolouration, rusted iron blocks slightly set into the obsidian wall. At the pull of the lever redstone fires, activates torches, which activates pistons, which set off a nice little chain reaction that ends in four iron blocks being wrenched into a wall cavity, neatly exposing a second, smaller corridor behind them. This room is tiny, barely enough space to fit an enderman, and Dream has to stoop to almost half his height in order to enter. He's faced with glass, and a mouldy, rotten cell, and Techno.

The anarchist still wears his cape, but it's tattered and muddy, frayed at the edges and pockmarked with bloodstains. What he doesn't still have is his crown; Dream obviously snatched it from him the night he'd been captured. At first it'd been a show of power, a petty 'nah nah nah nana I got the thing you like a lot cause I'm better than you' sort of move, but the effects of its removal were...interesting, to say the least. Techno was a Piglin. A rather capable Piglin, one which could avoid overworld zombification with enough golden apples (which, of course, they had been supplying him with. Just letting him die wouldn't be any fun), but a Piglin all the same. An advanced, intelligent species, but one with a fatal flaw: their instincts had to be suppressed through proximity to gold in any forms. Jewellery, decoration, even just raw nuggets - if they weren't near the stuff, their mind quickly deteriorated as base instincts took over. Not as irreversible or harmful as zombification, but not pleasant either.

The creature in the cage growls at Dream, a low guttural sound barely muffled by thick layers of glass. It isn't chained up, or anything like that - why would they bother with that, if it couldn't even break through the glass - but it still doesn't approach the glass. It hates Dream, hates him beyond words, but it's not fearless. Not right now. Techno would be. Techno would stroll right up to the man, mock him even in this situation, and gloat about how this can't last. That's how it went the first few visits. But right now, the instincts in the creature's head are screaming that the thing facing it is Dangerous, is Powerful, will Hurt them if they come near. And so the Piglin stays in the dark pressed against the walls of its cells, hunched over and breathing hard, scowling and growling and never daring to approach.

Dream smiles; well, his mask does. Same difference.


End file.
